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The Postal Service funds workers’ compensation benefits for employees who sustain job-related injuries. In FY 2008, the Postal Service incurred over $1.2 billion in workers' compensation expenses. In addition, the Postal Service estimated its liability for future workers’ compensation costs at nearly $8 billion. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) administers the workers’ compensation program and then bills the Postal Service for reimbursement.

The Postal Service requires full addresses on most mail, but this creates unnecessary complications for small local businesses such as pizza parlors and dry cleaners that simply want to send a flyer to every address in the surrounding area. It would be much easier for them to bring a stack of unaddressed mail pieces to the Postal Service and let the Postal Service deliver one to each address.

Merchandise Return Service and Parcel Return Service allow merchants to pay the shipping charges for their customers' returns. Merchandise Return Service is the end-to-end version, and Parcel Return Service provides workshare discounts for mailers willing to pick up the packages within the Postal Service's network. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General independently audits the efficiency and effectiveness of Postal Service programs such as Merchandise Return Service and Parcel Return Service.

The Postal Service lost $2.8 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2008. This year, the Postal Service is concerned its loss could grow to $6 billion or more. Since the Postal Service is limited by law from borrowing more than $3 billion per year and the Postal Service started 2009 with only $1.4 billion cash on hand, there is a danger the Postal Service could face a liquidity problem as payroll and benefits alone are about $54 billion a year.

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More than 31 million ballots were expected to have been mailed in the recent 2008 election — nearly twice as many as in 2004. Voting by mail has expanded as more states offer “no excuses” absentee ballots or conduct elections through the mail. Oregon has voted by mail since 1998 and has saved 30 percent of its election costs by eliminating polling places.

If the post office wants to have a dress code for their employees that is fine, how ever I have noticed for several years now, the mail carriers will make smart mouth comments to customers about the...

Latest Blog Posts

Postal employees injured on the job can return to work even if they can’t perform their regular jobs — so long as the work is within their medically defined restrictions. That’s the idea behind the U.S. Postal Service’s Limited Duty...

Latest Audit Asks

The U.S. Postal Service uses highway contract routes (HCR) to transport mail between post offices and other designated points where mail is received or dispatched. An extra trip is one made in addition to those outlined in the contract; it results in added costs. Extra trips can be the result of...

The U.S. Postal Service considers mail to be delayed when it is not processed in time to meet the established delivery day. Postal Service personnel count mail daily, self-report delayed mail, and enter the information into the Mail Condition Reporting System. Delayed mail reporting is important...

More than 42,000 Americans died from opioid-related overdoses in 2016 – five times higher than in 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Illegal opioids, including increasingly potent synthetic versions such as fentanyl, account for about half of those deaths.

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